The Batchewana First Nations has ended its blockade of the Huron Central Railway.
The blockade formally ended at 8 a.m. Tuesday, 24 hours after it began.
The blockade was manned by First Nation members throughout the night, but remained peaceful and quiet, without incident, said Chief Dean Sayers.
"Our people felt good when they left, as if it was a productive event," Sayers said. "Everyone was content when all was said and done."
The rail line blockade was designed to send a strong message to the federal and provincial governments that First Nations want their point-of-sale tax exemption effective July 1, when the new HST takes effect.
Sayers said that "history has not been kind and Canada does not have a good track record with First Nations agreements. Sept. 1 may never come," he said of the government's plan to have a system in place at that time to honour point-of-sale tax exemptions.
Sayers said the blockade was an attempt to educate people on the First Nation position and believes the group was successful with that.
The band still wants to establish a meeting with high level federal and provincial government officials to hammer out relationship terms with the band, but Sayers said he knows that is going to be harder to achieve and didn't expect it to result from the blockade.
Mario Breault, president of Huron Central Railway, said the company and the First Nations had discussions about the situation prior to it happening.
"It couldn't be avoided and we were told it wouldn't last long," Breault said.
The company, which operates trains six days a week, switched its "off" day to accommodate the First Nation and Breault said the railway's customers were also very co-operative and understanding about the situation.
"Going into the weekend, we didn't have 100 per cent comfort level that the blockade was not going to happen, so we made some schedule changes," he said in a telephone interview from his Montreal office.
Huron Central Railway resumed its regular schedule Tuesday.
The natives did stop a switcher -- an engine and three cars -- on Monday. The train stopped metres from the blockade, stayed there about an hour and then returned to the Sault Ste. Marie yard.
Sayers said debriefing on the event will continue this week and council will discuss it at its June 28 meeting.
The blockade, held on National Aboriginal Day, was designed to mark the band's discontent with the government's refusal to implement a point-of-sale HST tax exemption effective July 1 for natives.
Natives in Ontario have not had to pay provincial sales tax when making purchases anywhere in the province for 30 years, but that would have changed under federal plans for collecting on the new HST tax, which merges both the provincial sales tax and federal goods and services tax together.
First Nation members receive exemptions from the federal GST for goods bought off reserve when filing their income tax returns.
They are vehemently opposed to paying the HST, arguing that the payment is a violation of their treaty rights.
Sayers said there are no other definite protests planned.